The Collection

Currently, I have 1977 postcards in my collection. Early on I knew that this would be a very difficult collection to keep track of. How would I know if I already have the particular card I am looking at in a tourist store? How will I be able to find a card I am looking for in the collection? I have come up with two solutions - one for each situation.
On my computer I have a "catalogue" of the cards. It is on an Excel spreadsheet program. The collection is divided into 6 categories: Diesels facing left, Diesels facing right, Steamers facing left, Steamers facing right, Electric trains and Special Cards. The explanations for the first five are obvious. The Special Cards are those cards that I have decided to keep but do not involve an actualy train engine. There are several cards that revolve around the Royal Gorge in Colorado. They show the terrain or the suspension bridge but no train engine. I consider these to be so closely related to the rest of the Royal Gorge collection that I dare not ignore them. There are similar cards for the Mt. Lowe incline in California and Pikes Peak (or is it Pike's Peak) you'll never know by looking at the postcards. I put the cards with two trains facing in two directions into this category, too. I have cards of individual cars (dining cars, sleepers, flat cars with load) without engines. These fall into my special cards category, too.
I have another code I use to help me identify where the print is on the cards. If the font on the list is bolded, the wording is on the front of the card.
Within my albums I have a different way of finding the cards. I have one album just for Canadian trains. The steamers start in the front of the book and work toward the middle; the diesels start in the back of the book and work forward. I have CN & CP at the beginning of the album followed by trains from each province from west to east. On the outside of the album I have written that this album is for "Canadian Trains". The second album is for what I have termed "hand coloured" and black and white cards. These are the very old postcards that do not originate from a coloured print but from a B&W one and are coloured at the printers. The B&W postcards also include those that have been turned into sepia prints. These are kept in categories by state. It is amazing how many of these cards came from Colorado.
In the rest of the albums (steamers & diesels) I start each with Burlington Northern, followed by Santa Fe, then Southern Pacific then Union Pacific. The rest of the cards are then divided into "F units" and other engine types.
My electric and special cards are kept separately.
Next time, I will start talking about specific members of my collection